Let Me Make You Kwinn-To

In 1982, Marvel started publishing the comic “G.I.Joe – A Real American Hero”. This together with the cartoon series that started a year later was part of Hasbro’s master plan of using different media to help promote their product. So really as far as Hasbro was concerned, the comic really had one main purpose, to be a glorified catalogue to feature and help sell more of their toys.

All Fired Up Over A Jet

When I was a kid, my dad went off on numerous business trips out of the country. And when he came home, he would more often than not spoil us silly with all the pasalubongs (gifts) that he would bring back for us. And when he went off on one of his trips in 1985, I had only one thing on my mind for him to get for me…Transformers. I don’t really remember asking him for anything specific…at that point didn’t really have any real Transformer toys, just a solitary Diaclone jet that was meant to be Thundercracker. So really, I would be happy with ANY Transformer he would bring home.

Mini Monster Mash

Who doesn’t love monsters? And by monsters I’m referring to those iconic ones like Dracula, Frankenstein, the werewolf, etc. Ok truth be told…when I was younger…I was terrified of werewolves…but that’s beside the point. When I was a kid some of my favourite tv shows starred many of these monsters. Now at the risk of actually revealing how old I am, I figured it would be a fun exercise to look back at some of my old favourite monster shows…
so without further ado, let’s start with….

A Fondness for Male Sheep

One of the main reasons why the original He-Man & The Masters of the Universe toy line was so successful was because of the relatively resourceful method they employed for making toys for all their numerous characters. Two words: Shared Parts. Look at almost every Masters figure and you will notice that almost 90% of them share the same crotch/furry underwear piece. Over 90% have the same body structure. And when it comes to arms, feet and so on, you will usually find only a few variations of each scattered amongst hundreds of figures. More often than not, the only unique items each character would have were their head sculpts, armor and weapons, and even a good number of those were used at least more than once!

Hawking It Up To Nostalgia

When I first decided to go all out on collecting the 25th Anniversary G.I.Joes way back in 2009, I gave myself ONE restriction. I told myself that I would collect whatever figures I wanted from the toy line BUT I would stay away from getting any vehicles. My reasoning was simple, first, I wanted to keep my toy spending down (yeah right!) and second, I literally didn't have much display space for larger scale toys. Four years later, Joes have remained a major part of my collection and for the most part, I have managed to follow my self-imposed rule. Every now and then I would find myself getting a smaller scaled vehicle (like a motorcycle or a single manned cannon) in order to get a particular figure that came packed with it. But yeah, I managed to stay away from anything bigger. That is until this year when the bastards at Hasbro decided to release this baby….

The Perfect (Sand)Storm

In 2013, Hasbro released a proper modern update to the Transformer Springer. Unlike the past “updates” to the original G1 toy, this wasn’t just a simple repaint of another character. This was a true triple changing Springer with all three modes nicely executed. But more importantly, it was an all-new design that wasn’t previously used for an older character. This was 100% all Springer. Or so we thought….

Everybody Loves Logan...

Except me. Ok wait let me re-phrase that, if I really thought about it I don’t really hate Wolverine the character per se. I do believe he plays an important role in the Marvel Universe. I mean who wouldn’t love a troubled hero with the mysterious past who although at times is prone to fits of animalistic rage and goes totally berzerk ultimately has a heart of gold that everyone can identify with (cue violin music).

Alpha Bits Too

Next up is box set #2 with Northstar’s sister Aurora leading the way. As I mentioned earlier, she possesses similar speed and flight abilities like her brother, unfortunately she also suffers from a bad case of split personally disorder, which ironically makes her character all that more interesting.

Alpha Bits

When I was in New York, I came upon a cool toy/hobby shop called the Forbidden Planet. While I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, as always, something managed to catch my attention….

A Mini Introduction...

What do you get when you cross an action figure with a minifigure? OK OK so there really isn't a definitive answer to that question, but if you've ever gotten your hands on a minimate before then I’m pretty sure you’d agree that this is as close as its gonna get to an action+mini figure offspring.

Making The K'nex-tion

It was sometime last year when my girlfriend and I really got into collecting minifigures. Since then we have put together her collection of Lego minifigures which now has been updated all the way up to series 10. So just as I thought I had seen all the minifigures there were to see, one day I came across a delightful surprise while checking out the toy aisle at Target, while visiting my sister in New York….